As a general rule we do not want much encouragement to talk aboutourselves; yet this little book is the result of a friendlysuggestion, and even of a little friendly pressure. I defendedmyself with some spirit; but, with characteristic tenacity, thefriendly voice insisted: "You know, you really must."

It was not an argument, but I submitted at once. If one must!. . .

You perceive the force of a word. He who wants to persuadeshould put his trust, not in the right argument, but in the rightword. The power of sound has always been greater than the powerof sense. I don't say this by way of disparagement. It isbetter for mankind to be impressionable than reflective. Nothinghumanely great--great, I mean, as affecting a whole mass oflives--has come from reflection. On the other hand, you cannotfail to see the power of mere words; such words as Glory, forinstance, or Pity. I won't mention any more. They are not farto seek. Shouted with perseverance, with ardour, withconviction, these two by their sound alone have set whole nationsin motion and upheaved the dry, hard ground on which rests ourwhole social fabric. There's "virtue" for you if you like!. . .Of course the accent must be attended to. The right accent.That's very important. The capacious lung, the thundering or thetender vocal chords. Don't talk to me of your Archimedes' lever.He was an absent-minded person with a mathematical imagination.Mathematics command all my respect, but I have no use forengines. Give me the right word and the right accent and I willmove the world.

What a dream--for a writer! Because written words have theiraccent too. Yes! Let me only find the right word! Surely itmust be lying somewhere amongst the wreckage of all the plaintsand all the exultations poured out aloud since the first day whenhope, the undying, came down on earth. It may be there, closeby, disregarded, invisible, quite at hand. But it's no good. Ibelieve there are men who can lay hold of a needle in a pottle ofhay at the first try. For myself, I have never had such luck.

And then there is that accent. Another difficulty. For who isgoing to tell whether the accent is right or wrong till the wordis shouted, and fails to be heard, perhaps, and goes down-windleaving the world unmoved. Once upon a time there lived anEmperor who was a sage and something of a literary man. Hejotted down on ivory tablets thoughts, maxims, reflections whichchance has preserved for the edification of posterity. Amongstother sayings--I am quoting from memory--I remember this solemnadmonition: "Let all thy words have the accent of heroic truth."The accent of heroic truth! This is very fine, but I am thinkingthat it is an easy matter for an austere Emperor to jot downgrandiose advice. Most of the working truths on this earth arehumble, not heroic: and there have been times in the history ofmankind when the accents of heroic truth have moved it to nothingbut derision.

Nobody will expect to find between the covers of this little bookwords of extraordinary potency or accents of irresistibleheroism. However humiliating for my self-esteem, I must confessthat the counsels of Marcus Aurelius are not for me. They aremore fit for a moralist than for an artist. Truth of a modestsort I can promise you, and also sincerity. That complete,praise-worthy sincerity which, while it delivers one into thehands of one's enemies, is as likely as not to embroil one withone's friends.

"Embroil" is perhaps too strong an expression. I can't imagineeither amongst my enemies or my friends a being so hard up forsomething to do as to quarrel with me. "To disappoint one'sfriends" would be nearer the mark. Most, almost all, friendshipsof the writing period of my life have come to me through mybooks; and I know that a novelist lives in his work. He standsthere, the only reality in an invented world, amongst imaginarythings, happenings, and people. Writing about them, he is onlywriting about himself. But the disclosure is not complete. Heremains to a certain extent a figure behind the veil; a suspectedrather than a seen presence--a movement and a voice behind thedraperies of fiction. In these personal notes there is no suchveil. And I cannot help thinking of a passage in the "Imitationof Christ" where the ascetic author, who knew life so profoundly,says that "there are persons esteemed on their reputation who byshowing themselves destroy the opinion one had of them." This isthe danger incurred by an author of fiction who sets out to talkabout himself without disguise.

While these reminiscent pages were appearing serially I wasremonstrated with for bad economy; as if such writing were a formof self-indulgence wasting the substance of future volumes. Itseems that I am not sufficiently literary. Indeed a man whonever wrote a line for print till he was thirty-six cannot bringhimself to look upon his existence and his experience, upon thesum of his thoughts, sensations and emotions, upon his memoriesand his regrets, and the whole possession of his past, as only somuch material for his hands. Once before, some three years ago,when I published "The Mirror of the Sea," a volume of impressionsand memories, the same remarks were made to me. Practicalremarks. But, truth to say, I have never understood the kind ofthrift they recommended. I wanted to pay my tribute to the sea,its ships and its men, to whom I remain indebted for so muchwhich has gone to make me what I am. That seemed to me the onlyshape in which I could offer it to their shades. There could notbe a question in my mind of anything else. It is quite possiblethat I am a bad economist; but it is certain that I amincorrigible.

Having matured in the surroundings and under the specialconditions of sea-life, I have a special piety towards that formof my past; for its impressions were vivid, its appeal direct,its demands such as could be responded to with the naturalelation of youth and strength equal to the call. There wasnothing in them to perplex a young conscience. Having brokenaway from my origins under a storm of blame from every quarterwhich had the merest shadow of right to voice an opinion, removedby great distances from such natural affections as were stillleft to me, and even estranged, in a measure, from them by thetotally unintelligible character of the life which had seduced meso mysteriously from my allegiance, I may safely say that throughthe blind force of circumstances the sea was to be all my worldand the merchant service my only home for a long succession ofyears. No wonder then that in my two exclusively sea books, "TheNigger of the 'Narcissus'" and "The Mirror of the Sea" (and inthe few short sea stories like "Youth" and "Typhoon"), I havetried with an almost filial regard to render the vibration oflife in the great world of waters, in the hearts of the simplemen who have for ages traversed its solitudes, and also thatsomething sentient which seems to dwell in ships--the creaturesof their hands and the objects of their care.

One's literary life must turn frequently for sustenance tomemories and seek discourse with the shades; unless one has madeup one's mind to write only in order to reprove mankind for whatit is, or praise it for what it is not, or--generally--to teachit how to behave. Being neither quarrelsome, nor a flatterer,nor a sage, I have done none of these things; and I am preparedto put up serenely with the insignificance which attaches topersons who are not meddlesome in some way or other. Butresignation is not indifference. I would not like to be leftstanding as a mere spectator on the bank of the great streamcarrying onwards so many lives. I would fain claim for myselfthe faculty of so much insight as can be expressed in a voice ofsympathy and compassion.

It seems to me that in one, at least, authoritative quarter ofcriticism I am suspected of a certain unemotional, grimacceptance of facts; of what the French would call secheresse ducoeur. Fifteen years of unbroken silence before praise or blametestify sufficiently to my respect for criticism, that fineflower of personal expression in the garden of letters. But thisis more of a personal matter, reaching the man behind the work,and therefore it may be alluded to in a volume which is apersonal note in the margin of the public page. Not that I feelhurt in the least. The charge--if it amounted to a charge atall--was made in the most considerate terms; in a tone of regret.

My answer is that if it be true that every novel contains anelement of autobiography--and this can hardly be denied, sincethe creator can only express himself in his creation--then thereare some of us to whom an open display of sentiment is repugnant.I would not unduly praise the virtue of restraint. It is oftenmerely temperamental. But it is not always a sign of coldness.It may be pride. There can be nothing more humiliating than tosee the shaft of one's emotion miss the mark either of laughteror tears. Nothing more humiliating! And this for the reasonthat should the mark be missed, should the open display ofemotion fail to move, then it must perish unavoidably in disgustor contempt. No artist can be reproached for shrinking from arisk which only fools run to meet and only genius dare confrontwith impunity. In a task which mainly consists in laying one'ssoul more or less bare to the world, a regard for decency, evenat the cost of success, is but the regard for one's own dignitywhich is inseparably united with the dignity of one's work.

And then--it is very difficult to be wholly joyous or wholly sadon this earth. The comic, when it is human, soon takes uponitself a face of pain; and some of our griefs (some only, notall, for it is the capacity for suffering which makes man augustin the eyes of men) have their source in weaknesses which must berecognised with smiling compassion as the common inheritance ofus all. Joy and sorrow in this world pass into each other,mingling their forms and their murmurs in the twilight of life asmysterious as an over-shadowed ocean, while the dazzlingbrightness of supreme hopes lies far off, fascinating and still,on the distant edge of the horizon.

Yes! I too would like to hold the magic wand giving that commandover laughter and tears which is declared to be the highestachievement of imaginative literature. Only, to be a greatmagician one must surrender oneself to occult and irresponsiblepowers, either outside or within one's own breast. We have allheard of simple men selling their souls for love or power to somegrotesque devil. The most ordinary intelligence can perceivewithout much reflection that anything of the sort is bound to bea fool's bargain. I don't lay claim to particular wisdom becauseof my dislike and distrust of such transactions. It may be mysea-training acting upon a natural disposition to keep good holdon the one thing really mine, but the fact is that I have apositive horror of losing even for one moving moment that fullpossession of myself which is the first condition of goodservice. And I have carried my notion of good service from myearlier into my later existence. I, who have never sought in thewritten word anything else but a form of the Beautiful, I havecarried over that article of creed from the decks of ships to themore circumscribed space of my desk; and by that act, I suppose,I have become permanently imperfect in the eyes of the ineffablecompany of pure esthetes.

As in political so in literary action a man wins friends forhimself mostly by the passion of his prejudices and by theconsistent narrowness of his outlook. But I have never been ableto love what was not lovable or hate what was not hateful, out ofdeference for some general principle. Whether there be anycourage in making this admission I know not. After the middleturn of life's way we consider dangers and joys with a tranquilmind. So I proceed in peace to declare that I have alwayssuspected in the effort to bring into play the extremities ofemotions the debasing touch of insincerity. In order to moveothers deeply we must deliberately allow ourselves to be carriedaway beyond the bounds of our normal sensibility--innocentlyenough perhaps and of necessity, like an actor who raises hisvoice on the stage above the pitch of natural conversation--butstill we have to do that. And surely this is no great sin. Butthe danger lies in the writer becoming the victim of his ownexaggeration, losing the exact notion of sincerity, and in theend coming to despise truth itself as something too cold, tooblunt for his purpose--as, in fact, not good enough for hisinsistent emotion. From laughter and tears the descent is easyto snivelling and giggles.

These may seem selfish considerations; but you can't, in soundmorals, condemn a man for taking care of his own integrity. Itis his clear duty. And least of all you can condemn an artistpursuing, however humbly and imperfectly, a creative aim. Inthat interior world where his thought and his emotions go seekingfor the experience of imagined adventures, there are nopolicemen, no law, no pressure of circumstance or dread ofopinion to keep him within bounds. Who then is going to say Nayto his temptations if not his conscience?

And besides--this, remember, is the place and the moment ofperfectly open talk--I think that all ambitions are lawful exceptthose which climb upwards on the miseries or credulities ofmankind. All intellectual and artistic ambitions arepermissible, up to and even beyond the limit of prudent sanity.They can hurt no one. If they are mad, then so much the worsefor the artist. Indeed, as virtue is said to be, such ambitionsare their own reward. Is it such a very mad presumption tobelieve in the sovereign power of one's art, to try for othermeans, for other ways of affirming this belief in the deeperappeal of one's work? To try to go deeper is not to beinsensible. An historian of hearts is not an historian ofemotions, yet he penetrates further, restrained as he may be,since his aim is to reach the very fount of laughter and tears.The sight of human affairs deserves admiration and pity. Theyare worthy of respect too. And he is not insensible who paysthem the undemonstrative tribute of a sigh which is not a sob,and of a smile which is not a grin. Resignation, not mystic, notdetached, but resignation open-eyed, conscious and informed bylove, is the only one of our feelings for which it is impossibleto become a sham.

Not that I think resignation the last word of wisdom. I am toomuch the creature of my time for that. But I think that theproper wisdom is to will what the gods will without perhaps beingcertain what their will is--or even if they have a will of theirown. And in this matter of life and art it is not the Why thatmatters so much to our happiness as the How. As the Frenchmansaid, "Il y a toujours la maniere." Very true. Yes. There isthe manner. The manner in laughter, in tears, in irony, inindignations and enthusiasms, in judgments--and even in love.The manner in which, as in the features and character of a humanface, the inner truth is foreshadowed for those who know how tolook at their kind.

Those who read me know my conviction that the world, the temporalworld, rests on a few very simple ideas; so simple that they mustbe as old as the hills. It rests notably, amongst others, on theidea of Fidelity. At a time when nothing which is notrevolutionary in some way or other can expect to attract muchattention I have not been revolutionary in my writings. Therevolutionary spirit is mighty convenient in this, that it freesone from all scruples as regards ideas. Its hard, absoluteoptimism is repulsive to my mind by the menace of fanaticism andintolerance it contains. No doubt one should smile at thesethings; but, imperfect Esthete, I am no better Philosopher. Allclaim to special righteousness awakens in me that scorn and angerfrom which a philosophical mind should be free. . .

I fear that trying to be conversational I have only managed to beunduly discursive. I have never been very well acquainted withthe art of conversation--that art which, I understand, issupposed to be lost now. My young days, the days when one'shabits and character are formed, have been rather familiar withlong silences. Such voices as broke into them were anything butconversational. No. I haven't got the habit. Yet thisdiscursiveness is not so irrelevant to the handful of pages whichfollow. They, too, have been charged with discursiveness, withdisregard of chronological order (which is in itself a crime),with unconventionality of form (which is an impropriety). I wastold severely that the public would view with displeasure theinformal character of my recollections. "Alas!" I protestedmildly. "Could I begin with the sacramental words, 'I was bornon such a date in such a place'? The remoteness of the localitywould have robbed the statement of all interest. I haven't livedthrough wonderful adventures to be related seriatim. I haven'tknown distinguished men on whom I could pass fatuous remarks. Ihaven't been mixed up with great or scandalous affairs. This isbut a bit of psychological document, and even so, I haven'twritten it with a view to put forward any conclusion of my own."

But my objector was not placated. These were good reasons fornot writing at all--not a defence of what stood written already,he said.

I admit that almost anything, anything in the world, would serveas a good reason for not writing at all. But since I havewritten them, all I want to say in their defence is that thesememories put down without any regard for established conventionshave not been thrown off without system and purpose. They havetheir hope and their aim. The hope that from the reading ofthese pages there may emerge at last the vision of a personality;the man behind the books so fundamentally dissimilar as, forinstance, "Almayer's Folly" and "The Secret Agent"--and yet acoherent, justifiable personality both in its origin and in itsaction. This is the hope. The immediate aim, closely associatedwith the hope, is to give the record of personal memories bypresenting faithfully the feelings and sensations connected withthe writing of my first book and with my first contact with thesea.

In the purposely mingled resonance of this double strain a friendhere and there will perhaps detect a subtle accord.

J.C.K.

Chapter I.

Books may be written in all sorts of places. Verbal inspirationmay enter the berth of a mariner on board a ship frozen fast in ariver in the middle of a town; and since saints are supposed tolook benignantly on humble believers, I indulge in the pleasantfancy that the shade of old Flaubert--who imagined himself to be(amongst other things) a descendant of Vikings--might havehovered with amused interest over the decks of a 2000-ton steamercalled the "Adowa," on board of which, gripped by the inclementwinter alongside a quay in Rouen, the tenth chapter of "Almayer'sFolly" was begun. With interest, I say, for was not the kindNorman giant with enormous moustaches and a thundering voice thelast of the Romantics? Was he not, in his unworldly, almostascetic, devotion to his art a sort of literary, saint-likehermit?

"'It has set at last,' said Nina to her mother, pointing to thehills behind which the sun had sunk.". . .These words ofAlmayer's romantic daughter I remember tracing on the grey paperof a pad which rested on the blanket of my bed-place. Theyreferred to a sunset in Malayan Isles and shaped themselves in mymind, in a hallucinated vision of forests and rivers and seas,far removed from a commercial and yet romantic town of thenorthern hemisphere. But at that moment the mood of visions andwords was cut short by the third officer, a cheerful and casualyouth, coming in with a bang of the door and the exclamation:"You've made it jolly warm in here."

It was warm. I had turned on the steam-heater after placing atin under the leaky water-cock--for perhaps you do not know thatwater will leak where steam will not. I am not aware of what myyoung friend had been doing on deck all that morning, but thehands he rubbed together vigorously were very red and imparted tome a chilly feeling by their mere aspect. He has remained theonly banjoist of my acquaintance, and being also a younger son ofa retired colonel, the poem of Mr. Kipling, by a strangeaberration of associated ideas, always seems to me to have beenwritten with an exclusive view to his person. When he did notplay the banjo he loved to sit and look at it. He proceeded tothis sentimental inspection and after meditating a while over thestrings under my silent scrutiny inquired airily:

"What are you always scribbling there, if it's fair to ask?"

It was a fair enough question, but I did not answer him, andsimply turned the pad over with a movement of instinctivesecrecy: I could not have told him he had put to flight thepsychology of Nina Almayer, her opening speech of the tenthchapter and the words of Mrs. Almayer's wisdom which were tofollow in the ominous oncoming of a tropical night. I could nothave told him that Nina had said: "It has set at last." Hewould have been extremely surprised and perhaps have dropped hisprecious banjo. Neither could I have told him that the sun of mysea-going was setting too, even as I wrote the words expressingthe impatience of passionate youth bent on its desire. I did notknow this myself, and it is safe to say he would not have cared,though he was an excellent young fellow and treated me with moredeference than, in our relative positions, I was strictlyentitled to.

He lowered a tender gaze on his banjo and I went on lookingthrough the port-hole. The round opening framed in its brass rima fragment of the quays, with a row of casks ranged on the frozenground and the tail-end of a great cart. A red-nosed carter in ablouse and a woollen nightcap leaned against the wheel. An idle,strolling custom-house guard, belted over his blue capote, hadthe air of being depressed by exposure to the weather and themonotony of official existence. The background of grimy housesfound a place in the picture framed by my port-hole, across awide stretch of paved quay brown with frozen mud. The colouringwas sombre, and the most conspicuous feature was a little cafewith curtained windows and a shabby front of white woodwork,corresponding with the squalor of these poorer quarters borderingthe river. We had been shifted down there from another berth inthe neighbourhood of the Opera House, where that same port-holegave me a view of quite another sort of cafe--the best in thetown, I believe, and the very one where the worthy Bovary and hiswife, the romantic daughter of old Pere Renault, had somerefreshment after the memorable performance of an opera which wasthe tragic story of Lucia di Lammermoor in a setting of lightmusic.

I could recall no more the hallucination of the EasternArchipelago which I certainly hoped to see again. The story of"Almayer's Folly" got put away under the pillow for that day. Ido not know that I had any occupation to keep me away from it;the truth of the matter is that on board that ship we wereleading just then a contemplative life. I will not say anythingof my privileged position. I was there "just to oblige," as anactor of standing may take a small part in the benefitperformance of a friend.

As far as my feelings were concerned I did not wish to be in thatsteamer at that time and in those circumstances. And perhaps Iwas not even wanted there in the usual sense in which a ship"wants" an officer. It was the first and last instance in my sealife when I served ship-owners who have remained completelyshadowy to my apprehension. I do not mean this for the well-known firm of London ship-brokers which had chartered the ship tothe, I will not say short-lived, but ephemeral Franco-CanadianTransport Company. A death leaves something behind, but therewas never anything tangible left from the F.C.T.C. It flourishedno longer than roses live, and unlike the roses it blossomed inthe dead of winter, emitted a sort of faint perfume of adventureand died before spring set in. But indubitably it was a company,it had even a house-flag, all white with the letters F.C.T.C.artfully tangled up in a complicated monogram. We flew it at ourmain-mast head, and now I have come to the conclusion that it wasthe only flag of its kind in existence. All the same we onboard, for many days, had the impression of being a unit of alarge fleet with fortnightly departures for Montreal and Quebecas advertised in pamphlets and prospectuses which came aboard ina large package in Victoria Dock, London, just before we startedfor Rouen, France. And in the shadowy life of the F.C.T.C. liesthe secret of that, my last employment in my calling, which in aremote sense interrupted the rhythmical development of NinaAlmayer's story.

The then secretary of the London Shipmasters' Society, with itsmodest rooms in Fenchurch Street, was a man of indefatigableactivity and the greatest devotion to his task. He isresponsible for what was my last association with a ship. I callit that because it can hardly be called a sea-going experience.Dear Captain Froud--it is impossible not to pay him the tributeof affectionate familiarity at this distance of years--had verysound views as to the advancement of knowledge and status for thewhole body of the officers of the mercantile marine. Heorganised for us courses of professional lectures, St. Johnambulance classes, corresponded industriously with public bodiesand members of Parliament on subjects touching the interests ofthe service; and as to the oncoming of some inquiry or commissionrelating to matters of the sea and to the work of seamen, it wasa perfect godsend to his need of exerting himself on ourcorporate behalf. Together with this high sense of his officialduties he had in him a vein of personal kindness, a strongdisposition to do what good he could to the individual members ofthat craft of which in his time he had been a very excellentmaster. And what greater kindness can one do to a seaman than toput him in the way of employment? Captain Froud did not see whythe Shipmasters' Society, besides its general guardianship of ourinterests, should not be unofficially an employment agency of thevery highest class.

"I am trying to persuade all our great ship-owning firms to cometo us for their men. There is nothing of a trade-union spiritabout our society, and I really don't see why they should not,"he said once to me. "I am always telling the captains, too, thatall things being equal they ought to give preference to themembers of the society. In my position I can generally find forthem what they want amongst our members or our associatemembers."

In my wanderings about London from West to East and back again (Iwas very idle then) the two little rooms in Fenchurch Street werea sort of resting-place where my spirit, hankering after the sea,could feel itself nearer to the ships, the men, and the life ofits choice--nearer there than on any other spot of the solidearth. This resting-place used to be, at about five o'clock inthe afternoon, full of men and tobacco smoke, but Captain Froudhad the smaller room to himself and there he granted privateinterviews, whose principal motive was to render service. Thus,one murky November afternoon he beckoned me in with a crookedfinger and that peculiar glance above his spectacles which isperhaps my strongest physical recollection of the man.

"I have had in here a shipmaster, this morning," he said, gettingback to his desk and motioning me to a chair, "who is in want ofan officer. It's for a steamship. You know, nothing pleases memore than to be asked, but unfortunately I do not quite see myway. . ."

As the outer room was full of men I cast a wondering glance atthe closed door but he shook his head.

"Oh, yes, I should be only too glad to get that berth for one ofthem. But the fact of the matter is, the captain of that shipwants an officer who can speak French fluently, and that's not soeasy to find. I do not know anybody myself but you. It's asecond officer's berth and, of course, you would not care. . .would you now? I know that it isn't what you are looking for."

It was not. I had given myself up to the idleness of a hauntedman who looks for nothing but words wherein to capture hisvisions. But I admit that outwardly I resembled sufficiently aman who could make a second officer for a steamer chartered by aFrench company. I showed no sign of being haunted by the fate ofNina and by the murmurs of tropical forests; and even my intimateintercourse with Almayer (a person of weak character) had not puta visible mark upon my features. For many years he and the worldof his story had been the companions of my imagination without, Ihope, impairing my ability to deal with the realities of sealife. I had had the man and his surroundings with me ever sincemy return from the eastern waters, some four years before the dayof which I speak.

It was in the front sitting-room of furnished apartments in aPimlico square that they first began to live again with avividness and poignancy quite foreign to our former realintercourse. I had been treating myself to a long stay on shore,and in the necessity of occupying my mornings, Almayer (that oldacquaintance) came nobly to the rescue. Before long, as was onlyproper, his wife and daughter joined him round my table and thenthe rest of that Pantai band came full of words and gestures.Unknown to my respectable landlady, it was my practice directlyafter my breakfast to hold animated receptions of Malays, Arabsand half-castes. They did not clamour aloud for my attention.They came with a silent and irresistible appeal--and the appeal,I affirm here, was not to my self-love or my vanity. It seemsnow to have had a moral character, for why should the memory ofthese beings, seen in their obscure sun-bathed existence, demandto express itself in the shape of a novel, except on the groundof that mysterious fellowship which unites in a community ofhopes and fears all the dwellers on this earth?

I did not receive my visitors with boisterous rapture as thebearers of any gifts of profit or fame. There was no vision of aprinted book before me as I sat writing at that table, situatedin a decayed part of Belgravia. After all these years, eachleaving its evidence of slowly blackened pages, I can honestlysay that it is a sentiment akin to piety which prompted me torender in words assembled with conscientious care the memory ofthings far distant and of men who had lived.

But, coming back to Captain Froud and his fixed idea of neverdisappointing ship-owners or ship-captains, it was not likelythat I should fail him in his ambition--to satisfy at a fewhours' notice the unusual demand for a French-speaking officer.He explained to me that the ship was chartered by a Frenchcompany intending to establish a regular monthly line of sailingsfrom Rouen, for the transport of French emigrants to Canada.But, frankly, this sort of thing did not interest me very much.I said gravely that if it were really a matter of keeping up thereputation of the Shipmasters' Society, I would consider it. Butthe consideration was just for form's sake. The next day Iinterviewed the Captain, and I believe we were impressedfavourably with each other. He explained that his chief mate wasan excellent man in every respect and that he could not think ofdismissing him so as to give me the higher position; but that ifI consented to come as second officer I would be given certainspecial advantages--and so on.

I told him that if I came at all the rank really did not matter.

"I am sure," he insisted, "you will get on first rate with Mr.Paramor."

I promised faithfully to stay for two trips at least, and it wasin those circumstances that what was to be my last connectionwith a ship began. And after all there was not even one singletrip. It may be that it was simply the fulfilment of a fate, ofthat written word on my forehead which apparently forbade me,through all my sea wanderings, ever to achieve the crossing ofthe Western Ocean--using the words in that special sense in whichsailors speak of Western Ocean trade, of Western Ocean packets,of Western Ocean hard cases. The new life attended closely uponthe old and the nine chapters of "Almayer's Folly" went with meto the Victoria Dock, whence in a few days we started for Rouen.I won't go so far as saying that the engaging of a man fatednever to cross the Western Ocean was the absolute cause of theFranco-Canadian Transport Company's failure to achieve even asingle passage. It might have been that of course; but theobvious, gross obstacle was clearly the want of money. Fourhundred and sixty bunks for emigrants were put together in the'tween decks by industrious carpenters while we lay in theVictoria Dock, but never an emigrant turned up in Rouen--ofwhich, being a humane person, I confess I was glad. Somegentlemen from Paris--I think there were three of them, and onewas said to be the Chairman--turned up indeed and went from endto end of the ship, knocking their silk hats cruelly against thedeck-beams. I attended them personally, and I can vouch for itthat the interest they took in things was intelligent enough,though, obviously, they had never seen anything of the sortbefore. Their faces as they went ashore wore a cheerfullyinconclusive expression. Notwithstanding that this inspectingceremony was supposed to be a preliminary to immediate sailing,it was then, as they filed down our gangway, that I received theinward monition that no sailing within the meaning of ourcharter-party would ever take place.

It must be said that in less than three weeks a move took place.When we first arrived we had been taken up with much ceremonywell towards the centre of the town, and, all the street cornersbeing placarded with the tricolour posters announcing the birthof our company, the petit bourgeois with his wife and family madea Sunday holiday from the inspection of the ship. I was alwaysin evidence in my best uniform to give information as though Ihad been a Cook's tourists' interpreter, while our quarter-masters reaped a harvest of small change from personallyconducted parties. But when the move was made--that move whichcarried us some mile and a half down the stream to be tied up toan altogether muddier and shabbier quay--then indeed thedesolation of solitude became our lot. It was a complete andsoundless stagnation; for, as we had the ship ready for sea tothe smallest detail, as the frost was hard and the days short, wewere absolutely idle--idle to the point of blushing with shamewhen the thought struck us that all the time our salaries wenton. Young Cole was aggrieved because, as he said, we could notenjoy any sort of fun in the evening after loafing like this allday: even the banjo lost its charm since there was nothing toprevent his strumming on it all the time between the meals. Thegood Paramor--he was really a most excellent fellow--becameunhappy as far as was possible to his cheery nature, till onedreary day I suggested, out of sheer mischief, that he shouldemploy the dormant energies of the crew in hauling both cables upon deck and turning them end for end.

For a moment Mr. Paramor was radiant. "Excellent idea!" butdirectly his face fell. "Why. . .Yes! But we can't make thatjob last more than three days," he muttered discontentedly. Idon't know how long he expected us to be stuck on the riversideoutskirts of Rouen, but I know that the cables got hauled up andturned end for end according to my satanic suggestion, put downagain, and their very existence utterly forgotten, I believe,before a French river pilot came on board to take our ship down,empty as she came, into the Havre roads. You may think that thisstate of forced idleness favoured some advance in the fortunes ofAlmayer and his daughter. Yet it was not so. As if it were somesort of evil spell, my banjoist cabin-mate's interruption, asrelated above, had arrested them short at the point of thatfateful sunset for many weeks together. It was always thus withthis book, begun in '89 and finished in '94--with that shortestof all the novels which it was to be my lot to write. Betweenits opening exclamation calling Almayer to his dinner in hiswife's voice and Abdullah's (his enemy) mental reference to theGod of Islam--"The Merciful, the Compassionate"--which closes thebook, there were to come several long sea passages, a visit (touse the elevated phraseology suitable to the occasion) to thescenes (some of them) of my childhood and the realisation ofchildhood's vain words, expressing a light-hearted and romanticwhim.

It was in 1868, when nine years old or thereabouts, that whilelooking at a map of Africa of the time and putting my finger onthe blank space then representing the unsolved mystery of thatcontinent, I said to myself with absolute assurance and anamazing audacity which are no longer in my character now:

"When I grow up I shall go there."

And of course I thought no more about it till after a quarter ofa century or so an opportunity offered to go there--as if the sinof childish audacity were to be visited on my mature head. Yes.I did go there: there being the region of Stanley Falls which in'68 was the blankest of blank spaces on the earth's figuredsurface. And the MS. of "Almayer's Folly," carried about me asif it were a talisman or a treasure, went there too. That itever came out of there seems a special dispensation ofProvidence; because a good many of my other properties,infinitely more valuable and useful to me, remained behindthrough unfortunate accidents of transportation. I call to mind,for instance, a specially awkward turn of the Congo betweenKinchassa and Leopoldsville--more particularly when one had totake it at night in a big canoe with only half the proper numberof paddlers. I failed in being the second white man on recorddrowned at that interesting spot through the upsetting of acanoe. The first was a young Belgian officer, but the accidenthappened some months before my time, and he, too, I believe, wasgoing home; not perhaps quite so ill as myself--but still he wasgoing home. I got round the turn more or less alive, though Iwas too sick to care whether I did or not, and, always with"Almayer's Folly" amongst my diminishing baggage, I arrived atthat delectable capital Boma, where before the departure of thesteamer which was to take me home I had the time to wish myselfdead over and over again with perfect sincerity. At that datethere were in existence only seven chapters of "Almayer's Folly,"but the chapter in my history which followed was that of a long,long illness and very dismal convalescence. Geneva, or moreprecisely the hydropathic establishment of Champel, is renderedfor ever famous by the termination of the eighth chapter in thehistory of Almayer's decline and fall. The events of the ninthare inextricably mixed up with the details of the propermanagement of a waterside warehouse owned by a certain city firmwhose name does not matter. But that work, undertaken toaccustom myself again to the activities of a healthy existence,soon came to an end. The earth had nothing to hold me with forvery long. And then that memorable story, like a cask of choiceMadeira, got carried for three years to and fro upon the sea.Whether this treatment improved its flavour or not, of course Iwould not like to say. As far as appearance is concerned itcertainly did nothing of the kind. The whole MS. acquired afaded look and an ancient, yellowish complexion. It became atlast unreasonable to suppose that anything in the world wouldever happen to Almayer and Nina. And yet something most unlikelyto happen on the high seas was to wake them up from their stateof suspended animation.

What is it that Novalis says? "It is certain my conviction gainsinfinitely the moment another soul will believe in it." And whatis a novel if not a conviction of our fellow-men's existencestrong enough to take upon itself a form of imagined life clearerthan reality and whose accumulated verisimilitude of selectedepisodes puts to shame the pride of documentary history?Providence which saved my MS. from the Congo rapids brought it tothe knowledge of a helpful soul far out on the open sea. Itwould be on my part the greatest ingratitude ever to forget thesallow, sunken face and the deep-set, dark eyes of the youngCambridge man (he was a "passenger for his health" on board thegood ship Torrens outward bound to Australia) who was the firstreader of "Almayer's Folly"--the very first reader I ever had."Would it bore you very much reading a MS. in a handwriting likemine?" I asked him one evening on a sudden impulse at the end ofa longish conversation whose subject was Gibbon's History.Jacques (that was his name) was sitting in my cabin one stormydog-watch below, after bringing me a book to read from his owntravelling store.

"Not at all," he answered with his courteous intonation and afaint smile. As I pulled a drawer open his suddenly arousedcuriosity gave him a watchful expression. I wonder what heexpected to see. A poem, maybe. All that's beyond guessing now.He was not a cold but a calm man, still more subdued by disease--a man of few words and of an unassuming modesty in generalintercourse, but with something uncommon in the whole of hisperson which set him apart from the undistinguished lot of oursixty passengers. His eyes had a thoughtful introspective look.In his attractive reserved manner, and in a veiled sympatheticvoice he asked:

"What is this?" "It is a sort of tale," I answered with aneffort. "It is not even finished yet. Nevertheless I would liketo know what you think of it." He put the MS. in the breast-pocket of his jacket; I remember perfectly his thin brown fingersfolding it lengthwise. "I will read it tomorrow," he remarked,seizing the door-handle, and then, watching the roll of the shipfor a propitious moment, he opened the door and was gone. In themoment of his exit I heard the sustained booming of the wind, theswish of the water on the decks of the Torrens, and the subdued,as if distant, roar of the rising sea. I noted the growingdisquiet in the great restlessness of the ocean, and respondedprofessionally to it with the thought that at eight o'clock, inanother half-hour or so at the furthest, the top-gallant sailswould have to come off the ship.

Next day, but this time in the first dog-watch, Jacques enteredmy cabin. He had a thick, woollen muffler round his throat andthe MS. was in his hand. He tendered it to me with a steady lookbut without a word. I took it in silence. He sat down on thecouch and still said nothing. I opened and shut a drawer undermy desk, on which a filled-up log-slate lay wide open in itswooden frame waiting to be copied neatly into the sort of book Iwas accustomed to write with care, the ship's log-book. I turnedmy back squarely on the desk. And even then Jacques neveroffered a word. "Well, what do you say?" I asked at last. "Isit worth finishing?" This question expressed exactly the wholeof my thoughts.

"Distinctly," he answered in his sedate, veiled voice and thencoughed a little.

"Were you interested?" I inquired further almost in a whisper.

"Very much!"

In a pause I went on meeting instinctively the heavy rolling ofthe ship, and Jacques put his feet upon the couch. The curtainof my bed-place swung to and fro as it were a punkah, thebulkhead lamp circled in its gimbals, and now and then the cabindoor rattled slightly in the gusts of wind. It was in latitude40 south, and nearly in the longitude of Greenwich, as far as Ican remember, that these quiet rites of Almayer's and Nina'sresurrection were taking place. In the prolonged silence itoccurred to me that there was a good deal of retrospectivewriting in the story as far as it went. Was it intelligible inits action, I asked myself, as if already the story-teller werebeing born into the body of a seaman. But I heard on deck thewhistle of the officer of the watch and remained on the alert tocatch the order that was to follow this call to attention. Itreached me as a faint, fierce shout to "Square the yards.""Aha!" I thought to myself, "a westerly blow coming on." Then Iturned to my very first reader who, alas! was not to live longenough to know the end of the tale.

"Now let me ask you one more thing: is the story quite clear toyou as it stands?"

He raised his dark, gentle eyes to my face and seemed surprised.

"Yes! Perfectly."

This was all I was to hear from his lips concerning the merits of"Almayer's Folly." We never spoke together of the book again. Along period of bad weather set in and I had no thoughts left butfor my duties, whilst poor Jacques caught a fatal cold and had tokeep close in his cabin. When we arrived in Adelaide the firstreader of my prose went at once up-country, and died rathersuddenly in the end, either in Australia or it may be on thepassage while going home through the Suez Canal. I am not surewhich it was now, and I do not think I ever heard precisely;though I made inquiries about him from some of our returnpassengers who, wandering about to "see the country" during theship's stay in port, had come upon him here and there. At lastwe sailed, homeward bound, and still not one line was added tothe careless scrawl of the many pages which poor Jacques had hadthe patience to read with the very shadows of Eternity gatheringalready in the hollows of his kind, steadfast eyes.

The purpose instilled into me by his simple and final"Distinctly" remained dormant, yet alive to await itsopportunity. I dare say I am compelled, unconsciously compelled,now to write volume after volume, as in past years I wascompelled to go to sea voyage after voyage. Leaves must followupon each other as leagues used to follow in the days gone by, onand on to the appointed end, which, being Truth itself, is One--one for all men and for all occupations.

I do not know which of the two impulses has appeared moremysterious and more wonderful to me. Still, in writing, as ingoing to sea, I had to wait my opportunity. Let me confess herethat I was never one of those wonderful fellows that would goafloat in a wash-tub for the sake of the fun, and if I may pridemyself upon my consistency, it was ever just the same with mywriting. Some men, I have heard, write in railway carriages, andcould do it, perhaps, sitting cross-legged on a clothes-line; butI must confess that my sybaritic disposition will not consent towrite without something at least resembling a chair. Line byline, rather than page by page, was the growth of "Almayer'sFolly."

And so it happened that I very nearly lost the MS., advanced nowto the first words of the ninth chapter, in the Friedrichstrasserailway station (that's in Berlin, you know), on my way toPoland, or more precisely to Ukraine. On an early, sleepymorning changing trains in a hurry I left my Gladstone bag in arefreshment-room. A worthy and intelligent Koffertrager rescuedit. Yet in my anxiety I was not thinking of the MS. but of allthe other things that were packed in the bag.

In Warsaw, where I spent two days, those wandering pages werenever exposed to the light, except once, to candle-light, whilethe bag lay open on a chair. I was dressing hurriedly to dine ata sporting club. A friend of my childhood (he had been in theDiplomatic Service, but had turned to growing wheat on paternalacres, and we had not seen each other for over twenty years) wassitting on the hotel sofa waiting to carry me off there.

"You might tell me something of your life while you aredressing," he suggested kindly.

I do not think I told him much of my life-story either then orlater. The talk of the select little party with which he made medine was extremely animated and embraced most subjects underheaven, from big-game shooting in Africa to the last poempublished in a very modernist review, edited by the very youngand patronised by the highest society. But it never touched upon"Almayer's Folly," and next morning, in uninterrupted obscurity,this inseparable companion went on rolling with me in the south-east direction towards the Government of Kiev.

At that time there was an eight-hours' drive, if not more, fromthe railway station to the country house which was mydestination.

"Dear boy" (these words were always written in English), so ranthe last letter from that house received in London,--"Getyourself driven to the only inn in the place, dine as well as youcan, and some time in the evening my own confidential servant,factotum and major-domo, a Mr. V.S. (I warn you he is of nobleextraction), will present himself before you, reporting thearrival of the small sledge which will take you here on the nextday. I send with him my heaviest fur, which I suppose with suchovercoats as you may have with you will keep you from freezing onthe road."

Sure enough, as I was dining, served by a Hebrew waiter, in anenormous barn-like bedroom with a freshly painted floor, the dooropened and, in a travelling costume of long boots, big sheep-skincap and a short coat girt with a leather belt, the Mr. V.S. (ofnoble extraction), a man of about thirty-five, appeared with anair of perplexity on his open and moustachioed countenance. Igot up from the table and greeted him in Polish, with, I hope,the right shade of consideration demanded by his noble blood andhis confidential position. His face cleared up in a wonderfulway. It appeared that, notwithstanding my uncle's earnestassurances, the good fellow had remained in doubt of ourunderstanding each other. He imagined I would talk to him insome foreign language. I was told that his last words on gettinginto the sledge to come to meet me shaped an anxious exclamation:

"Well! Well! Here I am going, but God only knows how I am tomake myself understood to our master's nephew."

We understood each other very well from the first. He tookcharge of me as if I were not quite of age. I had a delightfulboyish feeling of coming home from school when he muffled me upnext morning in an enormous bear-skin travelling-coat and tookhis seat protectively by my side. The sledge was a very smallone and it looked utterly insignificant, almost like a toy behindthe four big bays harnessed two and two. We three, counting thecoachman, filled it completely. He was a young fellow with clearblue eyes; the high collar of his livery fur coat framed hischeery countenance and stood all round level with the top of hishead.

"Now, Joseph," my companion addressed him, "do you think we shallmanage to get home before six?" His answer was that we wouldsurely, with God's help, and providing there were no heavy driftsin the long stretch between certain villages whose names camewith an extremely familiar sound to my ears. He turned out anexcellent coachman with an instinct for keeping the road amongstthe snow-covered fields and a natural gift of getting the bestout of his horses.

"He is the son of that Joseph that I suppose the Captainremembers. He who used to drive the Captain's late grandmotherof holy memory," remarked V.S. busy tucking fur rugs about myfeet.

I remembered perfectly the trusty Joseph who used to drive mygrandmother. Why! he it was who let me hold the reins for thefirst time in my life and allowed me to play with the great four-in-hand whip outside the doors of the coach-house.

"What became of him?" I asked. "He is no longer serving, Isuppose."

"He served our master," was the reply. "But he died of choleraten years ago now--that great epidemic we had. And his wife diedat the same time--the whole houseful of them, and this is theonly boy that was left."

The MS. of "Almayer's Folly" was reposing in the bag under ourfeet.

I saw again the sun setting on the plains as I saw it in thetravels of my childhood. It set, clear and red, dipping into thesnow in full view as if it were setting on the sea. It wastwenty-three years since I had seen the sun set over that land;and we drove on in the darkness which fell swiftly upon the lividexpanse of snows till, out of the waste of a white earth joininga bestarred sky, surged up black shapes, the clumps of treesabout a village of the Ukrainian plain. A cottage or two glidedby, a low interminable wall and then, glimmering and winkingthrough a screen of fir-trees, the lights of the master's house.

That very evening the wandering MS. of "Almayer's Folly" wasunpacked and unostentatiously laid on the writing-table in myroom, the guest-room which had been, I was informed in anaffectedly careless tone, awaiting me for some fifteen years orso. It attracted no attention from the affectionate presencehovering round the son of the favourite sister.

"You won't have many hours to yourself while you are staying withme, brother," he said--this form of address borrowed from thespeech of our peasants being the usual expression of the highestgood humour in a moment of affectionate elation. "I shall bealways coming in for a chat."

As a matter of fact we had the whole house to chat in, and wereeverlastingly intruding upon each other. I invaded theretirement of his study where the principal feature was acolossal silver inkstand presented to him on his fiftieth year bya subscription of all his wards then living. He had beenguardian of many orphans of land-owning families from the threesouthern provinces--ever since the year 1860. Some of them hadbeen my schoolfellows and playmates, but not one of them, girlsor boys, that I know of has ever written a novel. One or twowere older than myself--considerably older, too. One of them, avisitor I remember in my early years, was the man who first putme on horseback, and his four-horse bachelor turn-out, hisperfect horsemanship and general skill in manly exercises was oneof my earliest admirations. I seem to remember my mother lookingon from a colonnade in front of the dining-room windows as I waslifted upon the pony, held, for all I know, by the very Joseph--the groom attached specially to my grandmother's service--whodied of cholera. It was certainly a young man in a dark blue,tail-less coat and huge Cossack trousers, that being the liveryof the men about the stables. It must have been in 1864, butreckoning by another mode of calculating time, it was certainlyin the year in which my mother obtained permission to travelsouth and visit her family, from the exile into which she hadfollowed my father. For that, too, she had had to askpermission, and I know that one of the conditions of that favourwas that she should be treated exactly as a condemned exileherself. Yet a couple of years later, in memory of her eldestbrother who had served in the Guards and dying early left hostsof friends and a loved memory in the great world of St.Petersburg, some influential personages procured for her thispermission--it was officially called the "Highest Grace"--of athree months' leave from exile.

This is also the year in which I first begin to remember mymother with more distinctness than a mere loving, wide-browed,silent, protecting presence, whose eyes had a sort of commandingsweetness; and I also remember the great gathering of all therelations from near and far, and the grey heads of the familyfriends paying her the homage of respect and love in the house ofher favourite brother who, a few years later, was to take theplace for me of both my parents.

I did not understand the tragic significance of it all at thetime, though indeed I remember that doctors also came. Therewere no signs of invalidism about her--but I think that alreadythey had pronounced her doom unless perhaps the change to asouthern climate could re-establish her declining strength. Forme it seems the very happiest period of my existence. There wasmy cousin, a delightful quick-tempered little girl, some monthsyounger than myself, whose life, lovingly watched over, as if shewere a royal princess, came to an end with her fifteenth year.There were other children, too, many of whom are dead now, andnot a few whose very names I have forgotten. Over all this hungthe oppressive shadow of the great Russian Empire--the shadowlowering with the darkness of a new-born national hatred fosteredby the Moscow school of journalists against the Poles after theill-omened rising of 1863.

This is a far cry back from the MS. of "Almayer's Folly," but thepublic record of these formative impressions is not the whim ofan uneasy egotism. These, too, are things human, already distantin their appeal. It is meet that something more should be leftfor the novelist's children than the colours and figures of hisown hard-won creation. That which in their grown-up years mayappear to the world about them as the most enigmatic side oftheir natures and perhaps must remain for ever obscure even tothemselves, will be their unconscious response to the still voiceof that inexorable past from which his work of fiction and theirpersonalities are remotely derived.

Only in men's imagination does every truth find an effective andundeniable existence. Imagination, not invention, is the suprememaster of art as of life. An imaginative and exact rendering ofauthentic memories may serve worthily that spirit of pietytowards all things human which sanctions the conceptions of awriter of tales, and the emotions of the man reviewing his ownexperience.

Chapter II.

As I have said, I was unpacking my luggage after a journey fromLondon into Ukraine. The MS. of "Almayer's Folly"--my companionalready for some three years or more, and then in the ninthchapter of its age--was deposited unostentatiously on thewriting-table placed between two windows. It didn't occur to meto put it away in the drawer the table was fitted with, but myeye was attracted by the good form of the same drawer's brasshandles. Two candelabra with four candles each lighted upfestally the room which had waited so many years for thewandering nephew. The blinds were down.

Within five hundred yards of the chair on which I sat stood thefirst peasant hut of the village--part of my maternalgrandfather's estate, the only part remaining in the possessionof a member of the family; and beyond the village in thelimitless blackness of a winter's night there lay the greatunfenced fields--not a flat and severe plain, but a kindly bread-giving land of low rounded ridges, all white now, with the blackpatches of timber nestling in the hollows. The road by which Ihad come ran through the village with a turn just outside thegates closing the short drive. Somebody was abroad on the deepsnowtrack; a quick tinkle of bells stole gradually into thestillness of the room like a tuneful whisper.

My unpacking had been watched over by the servant who had come tohelp me, and, for the most part, had been standing attentive butunnecessary at the door of the room. I did not want him in theleast, but I did not like to tell him to go away. He was a youngfellow, certainly more than ten years younger than myself; I hadnot been--I won't say in that place but within sixty miles of it,ever since the year '67; yet his guileless physiognomy of theopen peasant type seemed strangely familiar. It was quitepossible that he might have been a descendant, a son or even agrandson, of the servants whose friendly faces had been familiarto me in my early childhood. As a matter of fact he had no suchclaim on my consideration. He was the product of some villagenear by and was there on his promotion, having learned theservice in one or two houses as pantry-boy. I know this becauseI asked the worthy V-- next day. I might well have spared thequestion. I discovered before long that all the faces about thehouse and all the faces in the village: the grave faces withlong moustaches of the heads of families, the downy faces of theyoung men, the faces of the little fair-haired children, thehandsome, tanned, wide-browed faces of the mothers seen at thedoors of the huts were as familiar to me as though I had knownthem all from childhood, and my childhood were a matter of theday before yesterday.

The tinkle of the traveller's bels, after growing louder, hadfaded away quickly, and the tumult of barking dogs in the villagehad calmed down at last. My uncle, lounging in the corner of asmall couch, smoked his long Turkish chibouk in silence.

"This is an extremely nice writing-table you have got for myroom," I remarked.

"It is really your property," he said, keeping his eyes on me,with an interested and wistful expression as he had done eversince I had entered the house. "Forty years ago your mother usedto write at this very table. In our house in Oratow it stood inthe little sitting-room which, by a tacit arrangement, was givenup to the girls--I mean to your mother and her sister who died soyoung. It was a present to them jointly from our uncle NicholasB. when your mother was seventeen and your aunt two yearsyounger. She was a very dear, delightful girl, that aunt ofyours, of whom I suppose you know nothing more than the name.She did not shine so much by personal beauty and a cultivatedmind, in which your mother was far superior. It was her goodsense, the admirable sweetness of her nature, her exceptionalfacility and ease in daily relations that endeared her toeverybody. Her death was a terrible grief and a serious moralloss for us all. Had she lived she would have brought thegreatest blessings to the house it would have been her lot toenter, as wife, mother and mistress of a household. She wouldhave created round herself an atmosphere of peace and contentwhich only those who can love unselfishly are able to evoke.Your mother--of far greater beauty, exceptionally distinguishedin person, manner and intellect--had a less easy disposition.Being more brilliantly gifted she also expected more from life.At that trying time especially, we were greatly concerned abouther state. Suffering in her health from the shock of herfather's death (she was alone in the house with him when he diedsuddenly), she was torn by the inward struggle between her lovefor the man whom she was to marry in the end and her knowledge ofher dead father's declared objection to that match. Unable tobring herself to disregard that cherished memory and thatjudgment she had always respected and trusted, and, on the otherhand, feeling the impossibility to resist a sentiment so deep andso true, she could not have been expected to preserve her mentaland moral balance. At war with herself, she could not give toothers that feeling of peace which was not her own. It was onlylater, when united at last with the man of her choice that shedeveloped those uncommon gifts of mind and heart which compelledthe respect and admiration even of our foes. Meeting with calmfortitude the cruel trials of a life reflecting all the nationaland social misfortunes of the community, she realised the highestconceptions of duty as a wife, a mother and a patriot, sharingthe exile of her husband and representing nobly the ideal ofPolish womanhood. Our Uncle Nicholas was not a man veryaccessible to feelings of affection. Apart from his worship forNapoleon the Great, he loved really, I believe, only three peoplein the world: his mother--your great-grandmother, whom you haveseen but cannot possibly remember; his brother, our father, inwhose house he lived for so many years; and of all of us, hisnephews and nieces grown up round him, your mother alone. Themodest, lovable qualities of the youngest sister he did not seemable to see. It was I who felt most profoundly this unexpectedstroke of death falling upon the family less than a year after Ihad become its head. It was terribly unexpected. Driving homeone wintry afternoon to keep me company in our empty house, whereI had to remain permanently administering the estate andattending to the complicated affairs--(the girls took it in turnweek and week about)--driving, as I said, from the house of theCountess Tekla Potochka, where our invalid mother was stayingthen to be near a doctor, they lost the road and got stuck in asnowdrift. She was alone with the coachman and old Valery, thepersonal servant of our late father. Impatient of delay whilethey were trying to dig themselves out, she jumped out of thesledge and went to look for the road herself. All this happenedin '51, not ten miles from the house in which we are sitting now.The road was soon found, but snow had begun to fall thicklyagain, and they were four more hours getting home. Both the mentook off their sheepskin-lined great-coats and used all their ownrugs to wrap her up against the cold, notwithstanding herprotests, positive orders and even struggles, as Valeryafterwards related to me. 'How could I,' he remonstrated withher, 'go to meet the blessed soul of my late master if I let anyharm come to you while there's a spark of life left in my body?'When they reached home at last the poor old man was stiff andspeechless from exposure, and the coachman was in not much betterplight, though he had the strength to drive round to the stableshimself. To my reproaches for venturing out at all in suchweather, she answered characteristically that she could not bearthe thought of abandoning me to my cheerless solitude. It isincomprehensible how it was that she was allowed to start. Isuppose it had to be! She made light of the cough which came onnext day, but shortly afterwards inflammation of the lungs setin, and in three weeks she was no more! She was the first to betaken away of the young generation under my care. Behold thevanity of all hopes and fears! I was the most frail at birth ofall the children. For years I remained so delicate that myparents had but little hope of bringing me up; and yet I havesurvived five brothers and two sisters, and many of mycontemporaries; I have outlived my wife and daughter too--andfrom all those who have had some knowledge at least of these oldtimes you alone are left. It has been my lot to lay in an earlygrave many honest hearts, many brilliant promises, many hopesfull of life."

He got up brusquely, sighed, and left me, saying: "We will dinein half an hour." Without moving I listened to his quick stepsresounding on the waxed floor of the next room, traversing theante-room lined with bookshelves, where he paused to put hischibouk in the pipe-stand before passing into the drawing-room(these were all en suite), where he became inaudible on the thickcarpet. But I heard the door of his study-bedroom close. He wasthen sixty-two years old and had been for a quarter of a centurythe wisest, the firmest, the most indulgent of guardians,extending over me a paternal care and affection, a moral supportwhich I seemed to feel always near me in the most distant partsof the earth.

As to Mr. Nicholas B., sub-lieutenant of 1808, lieutenant of 1813in the French Army, and for a short time Officier d'Ordonnance ofMarshal Marmont; afterwards Captain in the 2nd Regiment ofMounted Rifles in the Polish Army--such as it existed up to 1830in the reduced kingdom established by the Congress of Vienna--Imust say that from all that more distant past, known to metraditionally and a little de visu, and called out by the wordsof the man just gone away, he remains the most incomplete figure.It is obvious that I must have seen him in '64, for it is certainthat he would not have missed the opportunity of seeing my motherfor what he must have known would be the last time. From myearly boyhood to this day, if I try to call up his image, a sortof mist rises before my eyes, a mist in which I perceive vaguelyonly a neatly brushed head of white hair (which is exceptional inthe case of the B. family, where it is the rule for men to gobald in a becoming manner, before thirty) and a thin, curved,dignified nose, a feature in strict accordance with the physicaltradition of the B. family. But it is not by these fragmentaryremains of perishable mortality that he lives in my memory. Iknew, at a very early age, that my grand-uncle Nicholas B. was aKnight of the Legion of Honour and that he had also the PolishCross for valour Virtuti Militari. The knowledge of theseglorious facts inspired in me an admiring veneration; yet it isnot that sentiment, strong as it was, which resumes for me theforce and the significance of his personality. It is overborneby another and complex impression of awe, compassion and horror.Mr. Nicholas B. remains for me the unfortunate and miserable (butheroic) being who once upon a time had eaten a dog.

It is a good forty years since I heard the tale, and the effecthas not worn off yet. I believe this is the very first, say,realistic, story I heard in my life; but all the same I don'tknow why I should have been so frightfully impressed. Of courseI know what our village dogs look like--but still. . .No! Atthis very day, recalling the horror and compassion of mychildhood, I ask myself whether I am right in disclosing to acold and fastidious world that awful episode in the familyhistory. I ask myself--is it right?--especially as the B. familyhad always been honourably known in a wide country-side for thedelicacy of their tastes in the matter of eating and drinking.But upon the whole, and considering that this gastronomicaldegradation overtaking a gallant young officer lies really at thedoor of the Great Napoleon, I think that to cover it up bysilence would be an exaggeration of literary restraint. Let thetruth stand here. The responsibility rests with the Man of St.Helena in view of his deplorable levity in the conduct of theRussian campaign. It was during the memorable retreat fromMoscow that Mr. Nicholas B., in company of two brother officers--as to whose morality and natural refinement I know nothing--bagged a dog on the outskirts of a village and subsequentlydevoured him. As far as I can remember the weapon used was acavalry sabre, and the issue of the sporting episode was rathermore of a matter of life and death than if it had been anencounter with a tiger. A picket of Cossacks was sleeping inthat village lost in the depths of the great Lithuanian forest.The three sportsmen had observed them from a hiding-place makingthemselves very much at home amongst the huts just before theearly winter darkness set in at four o'clock. They had observedthem with disgust and perhaps with despair. Late in the nightthe rash counsels of hunger overcame the dictates of prudence.Crawling through the snow they crept up to the fence of drybranches which generally encloses a village in that part ofLithuania. What they expected to get and in what manner, andwhether this expectation was worth the risk, goodness only knows.However, these Cossack parties, in most cases wandering withoutan officer, were known to guard themselves badly and often not atall. In addition, the village lying at a great distance from theline of French retreat, they could not suspect the presence ofstragglers from the Grand Army. The three officers had strayedaway in a blizzard from the main column and had been lost fordays in the woods, which explains sufficiently the terriblestraits to which they were reduced. Their plan was to try andattract the attention of the peasants in that one of the hutswhich was nearest to the enclosure; but as they were preparing toventure into the very jaws of the lion, so to speak, a dog (it ismighty strange that there was but one), a creature quite asformidable under the circumstances as a lion, began to bark onthe other side of the fence. . .

At this stage of the narrative, which I heard many times (byrequest) from the lips of Captain Nicholas B.'s sister-in-law, mygrandmother, I used to tremble with excitement.

The dog barked. And if he had done no more than bark threeofficers of the Great Napoleon's army would have perishedhonourably on the points of Cossack's lances, or perchanceescaping the chase would have died decently of starvation. Butbefore they had time to think of running away, that fatal andrevolting dog, being carried away by the excess of his zeal,dashed out through a gap in the fence. He dashed out and died.His head, I understand, was severed at one blow from his body. Iunderstand also that later on, within the gloomy solitudes of thesnow-laden woods, when, in a sheltering hollow, a fire had beenlit by the party, the condition of the quarry was discovered tobe distinctly unsatisfactory. It was not thin--on the contrary,it seemed unhealthily obese; its skin showed bare patches of anunpleasant character. However, they had not killed that dog forthe sake of the pelt. He was large. . .He was eaten. . .The restis silence. . .

A silence in which a small boy shudders and says firmly:

"I could not have eaten that dog."

And his grandmother remarks with a smile:

"Perhaps you don't know what it is to be hungry."

I have learned something of it since. Not that I have beenreduced to eat dog. I have fed on the emblematical animal,which, in the language of the volatile Gauls, is called la vacheenragee; I have lived on ancient salt junk, I know the taste ofshark, of trepang, of snake, of nondescript dishes containingthings without a name--but of the Lithuanian village dog--never!I wish it to be distinctly understood that it is not I but mygrand-uncle Nicholas, of the Polish landed gentry, Chevalier dela Legion d'Honneur, &c. &c., who, in his young days, had eatenthe Lithuanian dog.

I wish he had not. The childish horror of the deed clingsabsurdly to the grizzled man. I am perfectly helpless againstit. Still if he really had to, let us charitably remember thathe had eaten him on active service, while bearing up bravelyagainst the greatest military disaster of modern history, and, ina manner, for the sake of his country. He had eaten him toappease his hunger no doubt, but also for the sake of anunappeasable and patriotic desire, in the glow of a great faiththat lives still, and in the pursuit of a great illusion kindledlike a false beacon by a great man to lead astray the effort of abrave nation.

Pro patria!

Looked at in that light it appears a sweet and decorous meal.

And looked at in the same light my own diet of la vache enrageeappears a fatuous and extravagant form of self-indulgence; forwhy should I, the son of a land which such men as these haveturned up with their ploughshares and bedewed with their blood,undertake the pursuit of fantastic meals of salt junk and hardtack upon the wide seas? On the kindest view it seems anunanswerable question. Alas! I have the conviction that thereare men of unstained rectitude who are ready to murmur scornfullythe word desertion. Thus the taste of innocent adventure may bemade bitter to the palate. The part of the inexplicable shouldbe allowed for in appraising the conduct of men in a world whereno explanation is final. No charge of faithlessness ought to belightly uttered. The appearances of this perishable life aredeceptive like everything that falls under the judgment of ourimperfect senses. The inner voice may remain true enough in itssecret counsel. The fidelity to a special tradition may lastthrough the events of an unrelated existence, followingfaithfully too the traced way of an inexplicable impulse.

It would take too long to explain the intimate alliance ofcontradictions in human nature which makes love itself wear attimes the desperate shape of betrayal. And perhaps there is nopossible explanation. Indulgence--as somebody said--is the mostintelligent of all the virtues. I venture to think that it isone of the least common, if not the most uncommon of all. Iwould not imply by this that men are foolish--or even most men.Far from it. The barber and the priest, backed by the wholeopinion of the village, condemned justly the conduct of theingenious hidalgo who, sallying forth from his native place,broke the head of the muleteer, put to death a flock ofinoffensive sheep, and went through very doleful experiences in acertain stable. God forbid that an unworthy churl should escapemerited censure by hanging on to the stirrup-leather of thesublime caballero. His was a very noble, a very unselfishfantasy, fit for nothing except to raise the envy of basermortals. But there is more than one aspect to the charm of thatexalted and dangerous figure. He, too, had his frailties. Afterreading so many romances he desired naively to escape with hisvery body from the intolerable reality of things. He wished tomeet eye to eye the valorous giant Brandabarbaran, Lord ofArabia, whose armour is made of the skin of a dragon, and whoseshield, strapped to his arm, is the gate of a fortified city. Oamiable and natural weakness! O blessed simplicity of a gentleheart without guile! Who would not succumb to such a consolingtemptation? Nevertheless it was a form of self-indulgence, andthe ingenious hidalgo of La Mancha was not a good citizen. Thepriest and the barber were not unreasonable in their strictures.Without going so far as the old King Louis-Philippe, who used tosay in his exile, "The people are never in fault"--one may admitthat there must be some righteousness in the assent of a wholevillage. Mad! Mad! He who kept in pious meditation the ritualvigil-of-arms by the well of an inn and knelt reverently to beknighted at daybreak by the fat, sly rogue of a landlord, hascome very near perfection. He rides forth, his head encircled bya halo--the patron saint of all lives spoiled or saved by theirresistible grace of imagination. But he was not a goodcitizen.

Perhaps that and nothing else was meant by the well-rememberedexclamation of my tutor.

It was in the jolly year 1873, the very last year in which I havehad a jolly holiday. There have been idle years afterwards,jolly enough in a way and not altogether without their lesson,but this year of which I speak was the year of my last schoolboyholiday. There are other reasons why I should remember thatyear, but they are too long to state formally in this place.Moreover they have nothing to do with that holiday. What has todo with the holiday is that before the day on which the remarkwas made we had seen Vienna, the Upper Danube, Munich, the Fallsof the Rhine, the Lake of Constance--in fact it was a memorableholiday of travel. Of late we had been tramping slowly up theValley of the Reuss. It was a delightful time. It was much morelike a stroll than a tramp. Landing from a Lake of Lucernesteamer in Fluellen, we found ourselves at the end of the secondday, with the dusk overtaking our leisurely footsteps, a littleway beyond Hospenthal. This is not the day on which the remarkwas made: in the shadows of the deep valley and with thehabitations of men left some way behind, our thoughts ran notupon the ethics of conduct but upon the simpler human problem ofshelter and food. There did not seem anything of the kind insight, and we were thinking of turning back when suddenly at abend of the road we came upon a building, ghostly in thetwilight.

At that time the work on the St. Gothard Tunnel was going on, andthat magnificent enterprise of burrowing was directly responsiblefor the unexpected building, standing all alone upon the veryroots of the mountains. It was long though not big at all; itwas low; it was built of boards, without ornamentation, inbarrack-hut style, with the white window-frames quite flush withthe yellow face of its plain front. And yet it was an hotel; ithad even a name which I have forgotten. But there was no gold-laced door-keeper at its humble door. A plain but vigorousservant-girl answered our inquiries, then a man and woman whoowned the place appeared. It was clear that no travellers wereexpected, or perhaps even desired, in this strange hostelry,which in its severe style resembled the house which surmounts theunseaworthy-looking hulls of the toy Noah's Arks, the universalpossession of European childhood. However, its roof was nothinged and it was not full to the brim of slabsided and paintedanimals of wood. Even the live tourist animal was nowhere inevidence. We had something to eat in a long, narrow room at oneend of a long, narrow table, which, to my tired perception and tomy sleepy eyes, seemed as if it would tilt up like a see-sawplank, since there was no one at the other end to balance itagainst our two dusty and travel-stained figures. Then wehastened upstairs to bed in a room smelling of pine planks, and Iwas fast asleep before my head touched the pillow.

In the morning my tutor (he was a student of the CracowUniversity) woke me up early, and as we were dressing remarked:"There seems to be a lot of people staying in this hotel. I haveheard a noise of talking up till 11 o'clock?" This statementsurprised me; I had heard no noise whatever, having slept like atop.

We went downstairs into the long and narrow dining-room with itslong and narrow table. There were two rows of plates on it. Atone of the many uncurtained windows stood a tall bony man with abald head set off by a bunch of black hair above each ear andwith a long black beard. He glanced up from the paper he wasreading and seemed genuinely astonished at our intrusion. By-and-by more men came in. Not one of them looked like a tourist.Not a single woman appeared. These men seemed to know each otherwith some intimacy, but I cannot say they were a very talkativelot. The bald-headed man sat down gravely at the head of thetable. It all had the air of a family party. By-and-by, fromone of the vigorous servant-girls in national costume, wediscovered that the place was really a boarding-house for someEnglish engineers engaged at the works of the St. Gothard Tunnel;and I could listen my fill to the sounds of the English language,as far as it is used at a breakfast-table by men who do notbelieve in wasting many words on the mere amenities of life.

This was my first contact with British mankind apart from thetourist kind seen in the hotels of Zurich and Lucerne--the kindwhich has no real existence in a workaday world. I know now thatthe bald-headed man spoke with a strong Scotch accent. I havemet many of his kind since, both ashore and afloat. The secondengineer of the steamer "Mavis", for instance, ought to have beenhis twin brother. I cannot help thinking that he really was,though for some reasons of his own he assured me that he neverhad a twin brother. Anyway the deliberate bald-headed Scot withthe coal-black beard appeared to my boyish eyes a very romanticand mysterious person.

We slipped out unnoticed. Our mapped-out route led over theFurca Pass towards the Rhone Glacier, with the further intentionof following down the trend of the Hasli Valley. The sun wasalready declining when we found ourselves on the top of the pass,and the remark alluded to was presently uttered.

We sat down by the side of the road to continue the argumentbegun half a mile or so before. I am certain it was an argumentbecause I remember perfectly how my tutor argued and how withoutthe power of reply I listened with my eyes fixed obstinately onthe ground. A stir on the road made me look up--and then I sawmy unforgettable Englishman. There are acquaintances of lateryears, familiars, shipmates, whom I remember less clearly. Hemarched rapidly towards the east (attended by a hang-dog Swissguide) with the mien of an ardent and fearless traveller. He wasclad in a knickerbocker suit, but as at the same time he woreshort socks under his laced boots, for reasons which whetherhygienic or conscientious were surely imaginative, his calvesexposed to the public gaze and to the tonic air of highaltitudes, dazzled the beholder by the splendour of their marble-like condition and their rich tone of young ivory. He was theleader of a small caravan. The light of a headlong, exaltedsatisfaction with the world of men and the scenery of mountainsillumined his clean-cut, very red face, his short, silver-whitewhiskers, his innocently eager and triumphant eyes. In passinghe cast a glance of kindly curiosity and a friendly gleam of big,sound, shiny teeth towards the man and the boy sitting like dustytramps by the roadside, with a modest knapsack lying at theirfeet. His white calves twinkled sturdily, the uncouth Swissguide with a surly mouth stalked like an unwilling bear at hiselbow; a small train of three mules followed in single file thelead of this inspiring enthusiast. Two ladies rode past onebehind the other, but from the way they sat I saw only theircalm, uniform backs, and the long ends of blue veils hangingbehind far down over their identical hat-brims. His twodaughters surely. An industrious luggage-mule, with unstarchedears and guarded by a slouching, sallow driver, brought up therear. My tutor, after pausing for a look and a faint smile,resumed his earnest argument.

I tell you it was a memorable year! One does not meet such anEnglishman twice in a lifetime. Was he in the mystic ordering ofcommon events the ambassador of my future, sent out to turn thescale at a critical moment on the top of an Alpine pass, with thepeaks of the Bernese Oberland for mute and solemn witnesses? Hisglance, his smile, the unextinguishable and comic ardour of hisstriving-forward appearance helped me to pull myself together.It must be stated that on that day and in the exhilaratingatmosphere of that elevated spot I had been feeling utterlycrushed. It was the year in which I had first spoken aloud of mydesire to go to sea. At first like those sounds that, rangingoutside the scale to which men's ears are attuned, remaininaudible to our sense of hearing, this declaration passedunperceived. It was as if it had not been. Later on, by tryingvarious tones I managed to arouse here and there a surprisedmomentary attention--the "What was that funny noise?" sort ofinquiry. Later on it was--"Did you hear what that boy said?What an extraordinary outbreak!" Presently a wave of scandalisedastonishment (it could not have been greater if I had announcedthe intention of entering a Carthusian monastery) ebbing out ofthe educational and academical town of Cracow spread itself overseveral provinces. It spread itself shallow but far-reaching.It stirred up a mass of remonstrance, indignation, pityingwonder, bitter irony and downright chaff. I could hardly breatheunder its weight, and certainly had no words for an answer.People wondered what Mr. T.B. would do now with his worryingnephew and, I dare say, hoped kindly that he would make shortwork of my nonsense.

What he did was to come down all the way from Ukraine to have itout with me and to judge by himself, unprejudiced, impartial andjust, taking his stand on the ground of wisdom and affection. Asfar as is possible for a boy whose power of expression is stillunformed I opened the secret of my thoughts to him and he inreturn allowed me a glimpse into his mind and heart; the firstglimpse of an inexhaustible and noble treasure of clear thoughtand warm feeling, which through life was to be mine to draw uponwith a never-deceived love and confidence. Practically, afterseveral exhaustive conversations, he concluded that he would nothave me later on reproach him for having spoiled my life by anunconditional opposition. But I must take time for seriousreflection. And I must not only think of myself but of others;weigh the claims of affection and conscience against my ownsincerity of purpose. "Think well what it all means in thelarger issues, my boy," he exhorted me finally with specialfriendliness. "And meantime try to get the best place you can atthe yearly examinations."

The scholastic year came to an end. I took a fairly good placeat the exams., which for me (for certain reasons) happened to bea more difficult task than for other boys. In that respect Icould enter with a good conscience upon that holiday which waslike a long visit pour prendre conge of the mainland of oldEurope I was to see so little of for the next four and twentyyears. Such, however, was not the avowed purpose of that tour.It was rather, I suspect, planned in order to distract and occupymy thoughts in other directions. Nothing had been said formonths of my going to sea. But my attachment to my young tutorand his influence over me were so well known that he must havereceived a confidential mission to talk me out of my romanticfolly. It was an excellently appropriate arrangement, as neitherhe nor I had ever had a single glimpse of the sea in our lives.That was to come by-and-by for both of us in Venice, from theouter shore of Lido. Meantime he had taken his mission to heartso well that I began to feel crushed before we reached Zurich.He argued in railway trains, in lake steamboats, he had arguedaway for me the obligatory sunrise on the Righi, by Jove! Of hisdevotion to his unworthy pupil there can be no doubt. He hadproved it already by two years of unremitting and arduous care.I could not hate him. But he had been crushing me slowly, andwhen he started to argue on the top of the Furca Pass he wasperhaps nearer a success than either he or I imagined. Ilistened to him in despairing silence, feeling that ghostly,unrealised and desired sea of my dreams escape from the unnervedgrip of my will.

The enthusiastic old Englishman had passed--and the argument wenton. What reward could I expect from such a life at the end of myyears, either in ambition, honour or conscience? An unanswerablequestion. But I felt no longer crushed. Then our eyes met and agenuine emotion was visible in his as well as in mine. The endcame all at once. He picked up the knapsack suddenly and got onto his feet.

"You are an incorrigible, hopeless Don Quixote. That's what youare."

I was surprised. I was only fifteen and did not know what hemeant exactly. But I felt vaguely flattered at the name of theimmortal knight turning up in connection with my own folly, assome people would call it to my face. Alas! I don't think therewas anything to be proud of. Mine was not the stuff theprotectors of forlorn damsels, the redressers of this world'swrongs are made of; and my tutor was the man to know that best.Therein, in his indignation, he was superior to the barber andthe priest when he flung at me an honoured name like a reproach.

I walked behind him for full five minutes; then without lookingback he stopped. The shadows of distant peaks were lengtheningover the Furca Pass. When I came up to him he turned to me andin full view of the Finster-Aarhorn, with his band of giantbrothers rearing their monstrous heads against a brilliant sky,put his hand on my shoulder affectionately.

"Well! That's enough. We will have no more of it."

And indeed there was no more question of my mysterious vocationbetween us. There was to be no more question of it at all,nowhere or with any one. We began the descent of the Furca Passconversing merrily. Eleven years later, month for month, I stoodon Tower Hill on the steps of the St. Katherine's Dockhouse, amaster in the British Merchant Service. But the man who put hishand on my shoulder at the top of the Furca Pass was no longerliving.

That very year of our travels he took his degree of thePhilosophical Faculty--and only then his true vocation declareditself. Obedient to the call he entered at once upon the four-year course of the Medical Schools. A day came when, on the deckof a ship moored in Calcutta, I opened a letter telling me of theend of an enviable existence. He had made for himself a practicein some obscure little town of Austrian Galicia. And the letterwent on to tell me how all the bereaved poor of the district,Christians and Jews alike, had mobbed the good doctor's coffinwith sobs and lamentations at the very gate of the cemetery.

How short his years and how clear his vision! What greaterreward in ambition, honour and conscience could he have hoped towin for himself when, on the top of the Furca Pass, he bade melook well to the end of my opening life.

Chapter III.

The devouring in a dismal forest of a luckless Lithuanian dog bymy grand-uncle Nicholas B. in company of two other military andfamished scarecrows, symbolised, to my childish imagination, thewhole horror of the retreat from Moscow and the immorality of aconqueror's ambition. An extreme distaste for that objectionableepisode has tinged the views I hold as to the character andachievements of Napoleon the Great. I need not say that theseare unfavourable. It was morally reprehensible for that greatcaptain to induce a simple-minded Polish gentleman to eat dog byraising in his breast a false hope of national independence. Ithas been the fate of that credulous nation to starve for upwardsof a hundred years on a diet of false hopes and--well--dog. Itis, when one thinks of it, a singularly poisonous regimen. Somepride in the national constitution which has survived a longcourse of such dishes is really excusable. But enough ofgeneralising. Returning to particulars, Mr. Nicholas B. confidedto his sister-in-law (my grandmother) in his misanthropicallylaconic manner that this supper in the woods had been nearly "thedeath of him." This is not surprising. What surprises me isthat the story was ever heard of; for grand-uncle Nicholasdiffered in this from the generality of military men ofNapoleon's time (and perhaps of all time), that he did not liketo talk of his campaigns, which began at Friedland and endedsomewhere in the neighbourhood of Bar-le-Duc. His admiration ofthe great Emperor was unreserved in everything but expression.Like the religion of earnest men, it was too profound a sentimentto be displayed before a world of little faith. Apart from thathe seemed as completely devoid of military anecdotes as though hehad hardly ever seen a soldier in his life. Proud of hisdecorations earned before he was twenty-five, he refused to wearthe ribbons at the buttonhole in the manner practised to this dayin Europe and even was unwilling to display the insignia onfestive occasions, as though he wished to conceal them in thefear of appearing boastful. "It is enough that I have them," heused to mutter. In the course of thirty years they were seen onhis breast only twice--at an auspicious marriage in the familyand at the funeral of an old friend. That the wedding which wasthus honoured was not the wedding of my mother I learned onlylate in life, too late to bear a grudge against Mr. Nicholas B.,who made amends at my birth by a long letter of congratulationcontaining the following prophecy: "He will see better times."Even in his embittered heart there lived a hope. But he was nota true prophet.

He was a man of strange contradictions. Living for many years inhis brother's house, the home of many children, a house full oflife, of animation, noisy with a constant coming and going ofmany guests, he kept his habits of solitude and silence.Considered as obstinately secretive in all his purposes, he wasin reality the victim of a most painful irresolution in allmatters of civil life. Under his taciturn, phlegmatic behaviourwas hidden a faculty of short-lived passionate anger. I suspecthe had no talent for narrative; but it seemed to afford himsombre satisfaction to declare that he was the last man to rideover the bridge of the river Elster after the battle of Leipsic.Lest some construction favourable to his valour should be put onthe fact he condescended to explain how it came to pass. Itseems that shortly after the retreat began he was sent back tothe town where some divisions of the French Army (and amongstthem the Polish corps of Prince Joseph Poniatowski), jammedhopelessly in the streets, were being simply exterminated by thetroops of the Allied Powers. When asked what it was like inthere Mr. Nicholas B. muttered the only word "Shambles." Havingdelivered his message to the Prince he hastened away at once torender an account of his mission to the superior who had senthim. By that time the advance of the enemy had enveloped thetown, and he was shot at from houses and chased all the way tothe river bank by a disorderly mob of Austrian Dragoons andPrussian Hussars. The bridge had been mined early in the morningand his opinion was that the sight of the horsemen convergingfrom many sides in the pursuit of his person alarmed the officerin command of the sappers and caused the premature firing of thecharges. He had not gone more than 200 yards on the other sidewhen he heard the sound of the fatal explosions. Mr. Nicholas B.concluded his bald narrative with the word "Imbecile" utteredwith the utmost deliberation. It testified to his indignation atthe loss of so many thousands of lives. But his phlegmaticphysiognomy lighted up when he spoke of his only wound, withsomething resembling satisfaction. You will see that there wassome reason for it when you learn that he was wounded in theheel. "Like his Majesty the Emperor Napoleon himself," hereminded his hearers with assumed indifference. There can be nodoubt that the indifference was assumed, if one thinks what verydistinguished sort of wound it was. In all the history ofwarfare there are, I believe, only three warriors publicly knownto have been wounded in the heel--Achilles and Napoleon--demi-gods indeed--to whom the familial piety of an unworthy descendantadds the name of the simple mortal, Nicholas B.

The Hundred Days found Mr. Nicholas B. staying with a distantrelative of ours, owner of a small estate in Galicia. How he gotthere across the breadth of an armed Europe and after whatadventures I am afraid will never be known now. All his paperswere destroyed shortly before his death; but if there was amongstthem, as he affirmed, a concise record of his life, then I ampretty sure it did not take up more than a half-sheet of foolscapor so. This relative of ours happened to be an Austrian officer,who had left the service after the battle of Austerlitz. UnlikeMr. Nicholas B., who concealed his decorations, he liked todisplay his honourable discharge in which he was mentioned asunschreckbar (fearless) before the enemy. No conjunction couldseem more unpromising, yet it stands in the family tradition thatthese two got on very well together in their rural solitude.

When asked whether he had not been sorely tempted during theHundred Days to make his way again to France and join the serviceof his beloved Emperor, Mr. Nicholas B. used to mutter: "Nomoney. No horse. Too far to walk."

The fall of Napoleon and the ruin of national hopes affectedadversely the character of Mr. Nicholas B. He shrank fromreturning to his province. But for that there was also anotherreason. Mr. Nicholas B. and his brother--my maternalgrandfather--had lost their father early, while they were quitechildren. Their mother, young still and left very well off,married again a man of great charm and of an amiable dispositionbut without a penny. He turned out an affectionate and carefulstepfather; it was unfortunate though that while directing theboys' education and forming their character by wise counsel hedid his best to get hold of the fortune by buying and sellingland in his own name and investing capital in such a manner as tocover up the traces of the real ownership. It seems that suchpractices can be successful if one is charming enough to dazzleone's own wife permanently and brave enough to defy the vainterrors of public opinion. The critical time came when the elderof the boys on attaining his majority in the year 1811 asked forthe accounts and some part at least of the inheritance to beginlife upon. It was then that the stepfather declared with calmfinality that there were no accounts to render and no property toinherit. The whole fortune was his very own. He was very good-natured about the young man's misapprehension of the true stateof affairs, but of course felt obliged to maintain his positionfirmly. Old friends came and went busily, voluntary mediatorsappeared travelling on most horrible roads from the most distantcorners of the three provinces; and the Marshal of the Nobility(ex-officio guardian of all well-born orphans) called a meetingof landowners to "ascertain in a friendly way how themisunderstanding between X and his stepsons had arisen and deviseproper measures to remove the same." A deputation to that effectvisited X, who treated them to excellent wines, but absolutelyrefused his ear to their remonstrances. As to the proposals forarbitration he simply laughed at them; yet the whole provincemust have been aware that fourteen years before, when he marriedthe widow, all his visible fortune consisted (apart from hissocial qualities) in a smart four-horse turn-out with twoservants, with whom he went about visiting from house to house;and as to any funds he might have possessed at that time theirexistence could only be inferred from the fact that he was verypunctual in settling his modest losses at cards. But by themagic power of stubborn and constant assertion, there were foundpresently, here and there, people who mumbled that surely "theremust be something in it." However, on his next name-day (whichhe used to celebrate by a great three-days' shooting-party), ofall the invited crowd only two guests turned up, distantneighbours of no importance; one notoriously a fool, and theother a very pious and honest person but such a passionate loverof the gun that on his own confession he could not have refusedan invitation to a shooting-party from the devil himself. X metthis manifestation of public opinion with the serenity of anunstained conscience. He refused to be crushed. Yet he musthave been a man of deep feeling, because, when his wife tookopenly the part of her children, he lost his beautifultranquillity, proclaimed himself heart-broken and drove her outof the house, neglecting in his grief to give her enough time topack her trunks.

This was the beginning of a lawsuit, an abominable marvel ofchicane, which by the use of every legal subterfuge was made tolast for many years. It was also the occasion for a display ofmuch kindness and sympathy. All the neighbouring houses flewopen for the reception of the homeless. Neither legal aid normaterial assistance in the prosecution of the suit was everwanting. X, on his side, went about shedding tears publicly overhis stepchildren's ingratitude and his wife's blind infatuation;but as at the same time he displayed great cleverness in the artof concealing material documents (he was even suspected of havingburnt a lot of historically interesting family papers), thisscandalous litigation had to be ended by a compromise lest worseshould befall. It was settled finally by a surrender, out of thedisputed estate, in full satisfaction of all claims, of twovillages with the names of which I do not intend to trouble myreaders. After this lame and impotent conclusion neither thewife nor the stepsons had anything to say to the man who hadpresented the world with such a successful example of self-helpbased on character, determination and industry; and my great-grandmother, her health completely broken down, died a couple ofyears later in Carlsbad. Legally secured by a decree in thepossession of his plunder, X regained his wonted serenity andwent on living in the neighbourhood in a comfortable style and inapparent peace of mind. His big shoots were fairly well attendedagain. He was never tired of assuring people that he bore nogrudge for what was past; he protested loudly of his constantaffection for his wife and stepchildren. It was true he saidthat they had tried their best to strip him as naked as a Turkishsaint in the decline of his days; and because he had defendedhimself from spoliation, as anybody else in his place would havedone, they had abandoned him now to the horrors of a solitary oldage. Nevertheless, his love for them survived these cruel blows.And there might have been some truth in his protestations. Verysoon he began to make overtures of friendship to his eldeststepson, my maternal grandfather; and when these wereperemptorily rejected he went on renewing them again and againwith characteristic obstinacy. For years he persisted in hisefforts at reconciliation, promising my grandfather to execute awill in his favour if he only would be friends again to theextent of calling now and then (it was fairly close neighbourhoodfor these parts, forty miles or so), or even of putting in anappearance for the great shoot on the name-day. My grandfatherwas an ardent lover of every sport. His temperament was as freefrom hardness and animosity as can be imagined. Pupil of theliberal-minded Benedictines who directed the only public schoolof some standing then in the south, he had also read deeply theauthors of the eighteenth century. In him Christian charity wasjoined to a philosophical indulgence for the failings of humannature. But the memory of these miserably anxious early years,his young man's years robbed of all generous illusions by thecynicism of the sordid lawsuit, stood in the way of forgiveness.He never succumbed to the fascination of the great shoot; and X,his heart set to the last on reconciliation with the draft of thewill ready for signature kept by his bedside, died intestate.The fortune thus acquired and augmented by a wise and carefulmanagement passed to some distant relatives whom he had neverseen and who even did not bear his name.

Meantime the blessing of general peace descended upon Europe.Mr. Nicholas B., bidding good-bye to his hospitable relative, the"fearless" Austrian officer, departed from Galicia, and withoutgoing near his native place, where the odious lawsuit was stillgoing on, proceeded straight to Warsaw and entered the army ofthe newly constituted Polish kingdom under the sceptre ofAlexander I., Autocrat of all the Russias.

This kingdom, created by the Vienna Congress as an acknowledgmentto a nation of its former independent existence, included onlythe central provinces of the old Polish patrimony. A brother ofthe Emperor, the Grand Duke Constantine (Pavlovitch), its Viceroyand Commander-in-Chief, married morganatically to a Polish ladyto whom he was fiercely attached, extended this affection to whathe called "My Poles" in a capricious and savage manner. Sallowin complexion, with a Tartar physiognomy and fierce little eyes,he walked with his fists clenched, his body bent forward, dartingsuspicious glances from under an enormous cocked hat. Hisintelligence was limited and his sanity itself was doubtful. Thehereditary taint expressed itself, in his case, not by mysticleanings as in his two brothers, Alexander and Nicholas (in theirvarious ways, for one was mystically liberal and the othermystically autocratic), but by the fury of an uncontrollabletemper which generally broke out in disgusting abuse on theparade ground. He was a passionate militarist and an amazingdrill-master. He treated his Polish Army as a spoiled childtreats a favourite toy, except that he did not take it to bedwith him at night. It was not small enough for that. But heplayed with it all day and every day, delighting in the varietyof pretty uniforms and in the fun of incessant drilling. Thischildish passion, not for war but for mere militarism, achieved adesirable result. The Polish Army, in its equipment, in itsarmament and in its battlefield efficiency, as then understood,became, by the end of the year 1830, a first-rate tacticalinstrument. Polish peasantry (not serfs) served in the ranks byenlistment, and the officers belonged mainly to the smallernobility. Mr. Nicholas B., with his Napoleonic record, had nodifficulty in obtaining a lieutenancy, but the promotion in thePolish Army was slow, because, being a separate organisation, ittook no part in the wars of the Russian Empire against Persia orTurkey. Its first campaign, against Russia itself, was to be itslast. In 1831, on the outbreak of the Revolution, Mr. NicholasB. was the senior captain of his regiment. Some time before hehad been made head of the remount establishment quartered outsidethe kingdom in our southern provinces, whence almost all thehorses for the Polish cavalry were drawn. For the first timesince he went away from home at the age of eighteen to begin hismilitary life by the battle of Friedland, Mr. Nicholas B.breathed the air of the "Border," his native air. Unkind fatewas lying in wait for him amongst the scenes of his youth. Atthe first news of the rising in Warsaw all the remountestablishment, officers, vets., and the very troopers, were putpromptly under arrest and hurried off in a body beyond theDnieper to the nearest town in Russia proper. From there theywere dispersed to the distant parts of the Empire. On thisoccasion poor Mr. Nicholas B. penetrated into Russia much fartherthan he ever did in the times of Napoleonic invasion, if muchless willingly. Astrakhan was his destination. He remainedthere three years, allowed to live at large in the town buthaving to report himself every day at noon to the militarycommandant, who used to detain him frequently for a pipe and achat. It is difficult to form a just idea of what a chat withMr. Nicholas B. could have been like. There must have been muchcompressed rage under his taciturnity, for the commandantcommunicated to him the news from the theatre of war and thisnews was such as it could be, that is, very bad for the Poles.Mr. Nicholas B. received these communications with outwardphlegm, but the Russian showed a warm sympathy for his prisoner."As a soldier myself I understand your feelings. You, of course,would like to be in the thick of it. By heavens! I am fond ofyou. If it were not for the terms of the military oath I wouldlet you go on my own responsibility. What difference could itmake to us, one more or less of you?"

At other times he wondered with simplicity.

"Tell me, Nicholas Stepanovitch"--(my great-grandfather's namewas Stephen and the commandant used the Russian form of politeaddress)--"tell me why is it that you Poles are always lookingfor trouble? What else could you expect from running up against